topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Saturday November 2, 2024, 3:08 pm
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Last post Author Topic: General brainstorming for Note-taking software  (Read 894179 times)

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,913
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #225 on: May 26, 2006, 12:56 PM »
vadim - i think you are definitely right - and i think that eventually this thread is moving in that direction.
it's probably just a matter of first trying to figure out and organize such issues - as you probably agree i don't think anyone yet knows how to formulate a perfect list of test cases or exact features.. but this thread is doing a great job of trying to figure out such a thing, and i hope eventually the outcome is a kind of summary of the main issues and features that would make a perfect note taking program..

rjbull

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 3,205
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #226 on: May 28, 2006, 03:56 PM »
superboyac,

I see the screenshot of MyBase on their Web site contains lots of graphics, but I recall seeing a comment on the Keynote site to the effect that RTF is a bad format for graphics because it has to be read line by line, so is slow.  What's your experience of that?

Does MyBase have good Boolean searching, and is it indexed?  Did they fix the searching bugs now that the 5 beta seems to have turned into a full release?

Thanks in advance...

urlwolf

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,837
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #227 on: May 31, 2006, 02:41 PM »
Onfolio by ISI (the guys behind the destruction of endNote from v.7 onwards) has a similar application, onFolio, reviewed here:
http://informationr....frev21/sofrev21.html

nevf

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 115
    • View Profile
    • Clibu, accessible knowledge
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #228 on: May 31, 2006, 03:27 PM »
Onfolio by ISI (the guys behind the destruction of endNote from v.7 onwards) has a similar application, onFolio, reviewed here:
http://informationr....frev21/sofrev21.html

OnFolio was bought out by Microsoft a few months back and has changed somewhat, leaving most if not all Onfolio users pretty unhappy. A number have already switched to Surfulater and others are contemplating it. See: http://www.onfolio.c...egories.cfm?catid=10
Neville Franks, Clibu a better way to collect, use, manage and share information across all devices.

superboyac

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,347
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #229 on: May 31, 2006, 04:10 PM »
superboyac,

I see the screenshot of MyBase on their Web site contains lots of graphics, but I recall seeing a comment on the Keynote site to the effect that RTF is a bad format for graphics because it has to be read line by line, so is slow.  What's your experience of that?

Does MyBase have good Boolean searching, and is it indexed?  Did they fix the searching bugs now that the 5 beta seems to have turned into a full release?

Thanks in advance...


Sorry rjbull, I didn't notice your question earlier.  I actually don't know too much about what you're asking, since I don't use pictures in my notes that much (only one note, I think uses, pictures!).  I'll give it a shot later and tell you what I think about its speed.

Actually, I don't think Mybase allows inserting pictures in the actual note itself unless it is a .bmp.  What you can do is attach a picture file, and when you click on the attachment, it will be displayed in the web-viewer tab (which is on each note).  And Mybase uses IE as it's web-viewing engine, so take that for what it's worth.  I find that web content (actual web pages, pictures, basically, anything in the web tab) has a little delay associated with it.  I'm assuming this has something with invoking the IE engine.

Personally, as far as working with web content, EverNote does it the best of all the programs I've tried, by far.  Surfulater does it well also, but I always have had problems with pictures on webpages with Surfulater.  For just taking snapshots of webpages, use Evernote.  For more complex referencing and linking and organizing of captured webpages, use Surfulater.  The Scrapbook plugin for Firefox is also good for simple needs, it works like regular bookmarks, but the webpage is static according to when it was captured.

Someone mentioned before that for notetaking, it is wise to stick to text as much as possible, instead of embedding webpages and pictures, etc.  The resulting database file will be huge, otherwise.  I stick to this philosophy, and this is what I had in mind when discussing the issues in this thread.  Now, I know that in this day and age, having multimedia content is somewhat essential, but I feel the smarter way to deal with this is with attachments linking to files instead of embedding the content in the database.  It's probably why I'm the only person here that still kind of has hopes for a program like Zoot, where, while it's totally unattractive and dysfunctional at the moment, has a lot of great functions for strictly text based notetaking.

Anyway, I digress.  The answer to your question is, yes, I feel Mybase is a little slow in handling pictures.  But it's not due to rtf, because it doesn't support anything besides bmp.  It's because it invokes IE for web content.  Evernote and Surfulater are a little fast in this category.

nevf

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 115
    • View Profile
    • Clibu, accessible knowledge
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #230 on: May 31, 2006, 04:31 PM »
Superboyac,
Re. Text only notes. I'm afraid I can't agree on this one and doubt whether many of my Surfulater users would, especially when it comes to capturing Web content. As they say a picture is worth 1,000 words. For example screen shots in program reviews, diagrams that clearly explain something, photographs etc. all add great value to captured information. Can you imagine a "text only" WWW. :down:

Having said that, of course it is totally up the user whether they use text alone or include "some" images. It doesn't make any sense to me to use a program that only allows text. And with Surfulater all of your text is stored in XML, so it is easy to access.

I've recently written two blog (1 & 2) posts that explain how you can add content to Surfulater from other applications. And Perry Mowbray has just released a cool program that makes use of this by tying into the Windows Explorer "Send To" menu.

Can you e-mail me re. Surfulater not grabbing images. I had been meaning to ask you to do this earlier. FYI I am not aware of any issues capturing images. Please send me the SurfulaterLog.txt file located in the folder SUL is installed in. Thanks.
Neville Franks, Clibu a better way to collect, use, manage and share information across all devices.

nudone

  • Cody's Creator
  • Columnist
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 4,119
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #231 on: May 31, 2006, 04:42 PM »
nevf, thanks for mentioning Perry Mowbray's 'SendToSurfulater'.

will download right away.

rjbull

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 3,205
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #232 on: June 01, 2006, 04:45 AM »
Mybase uses IE as it's web-viewing engine, so take that for what it's worth.

Ugh.  I don't like that at all...  for somewhat "religious" reasons.  It's a pity MyBase doesn't have its own built-in rendering engine, like say Pegasus Mail and The Bat! have, at least for bitmaps if not for whole HTML pages.

Someone mentioned before that for notetaking, it is wise to stick to text as much as possible, instead of embedding webpages and pictures, etc.

I agree, and almost all of the data I keep that matters is plain text, both at home and at work.  That's why I'm particularly keen on good Boolean searching and preferably indexed databases.  Yet nevf does have a point; I was looking at some "how to" tutorials yesterday that had screenshots, and sometimes it would be useful to keep them.  Maybe I should follow your advice and look at EverNote for that sort of occasional use.

Thanks!




Jimdoria

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 257
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #233 on: June 01, 2006, 09:41 AM »
Hear, hear, nevf!

Pictures are definitely worth their weight, IMHO. Even more important though, is text formatting. I need to be able to bold and italicize key words and concepts, create bulleted or numbered lists, indent things like quotations, sometimes even color-code text. And don't get me started about the usefulness of tables. I'd have a VERY hard time organizing my thoughts without these tools, even if I could forego pictures. Plain text is never going to cut it for me. If it did, I'd use notepad and leave it at that.

I've been using OneNote as a trial, and I wound up setting up a basic 2-column layout on most of my note pages. In some cases I'd simply put the main list on the left and a secondary list or two on the right. Sometimes I'd have a list of things to do on the left, with my annotations and progress reminders for each list item called out on the right.

Unfortunately, my trial expired yesterday, and I found out that not only does the application switch to read-only mode (which I had been warned about and had expected) but it disables the ability to copy anything to the clipboard! :'( I knew I'd lose the ability to update my notebook once the trial expired, but I never expected MS would hold all my info hostage! No wonder everyone thinks they're so evil.
- Jimdoria ~@>@

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who divide everybody into two kinds of people, and those who don't.

superboyac

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,347
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #234 on: June 01, 2006, 12:00 PM »
Yes, nevf, don't get me wrong about the content, I agree that it's a purely personal thing.  I definitely feel that a good notetaking application must have the ability to capture content, especially from the web.  The reason why I try not to is because I know that once I start doing a lot of capturing, I become less selective about what I am getting and pretty soon, my database becomes chaos because I have loads of information and pictures in my database.  And, even though the ability is there, I'm usually not really going to edit the content all that much, especially if it's a particularly large amount of editing.  Call it laziness or whatever, but it's something I've noticed about myself with these notetaking applications.

On the other hand, I also totally agree with jimdoria about the ability to format text and add tables (tables are a whole other discussion!).  I use this much more than capturing webpages because instead of leading to chaos, it allows me to be more structured (at least visually).  But the pros and cons of text and web content are many, and there are a lot of gray areas.  But before I forget, remember that this is a notetaking thread and while capturing information is an integral part of this, let's do it one step at a time and figure out our issues with text before moving on to the supporting issues.

Ideally, I'd like to make an outline about what we should expect from the ultimate notetaking app, and obviously, dealing with text will be the main issue, and there will be several secondary issues supporting that goal, including capturing information, ability to plugin to Google Desktop, etc.

Nevf, I will get around to emailing you about the capturing issue I'm having with pictures. 

superboyac

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,347
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #235 on: June 01, 2006, 12:22 PM »
I've just printed out posts 1-340 (wow!) and I'm going to start putting together an official summary of this thread to date.  I'll send it to mouser and maybe he can format it to be like an official DC document.

thomthowolf

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 106
  • Bad software makes me tired
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #236 on: June 01, 2006, 03:33 PM »
NEW NOTE TAKERS TO SHARE 

Ok, so here are a couple more note-taking apps to consider.  The first actually came from a disgruntled poster on the Evernote Forum (truth is, there are a lot of those.)  He said:


By the way, o good evernoters community, did you ever hear of a product called MyInfo (see http://www.milenix.com/). It's an amazing product which adds a OneNote-like organisation over the EverNote-like categories. Kinda best of both worlds, even though the produc lacks the Tablet PC Ink support.
And maybe, maybe... Well, maybe they live in a country far away where the good people care about their customers and deliver new versions on a monthly basis with new features and can then expect to draw confidence and mindshare, which basically means market share and survival. Oh well...


You have to excuse the sarcasm.  This is from a post to a brand new user.  I think you have to be really p****d off to hang around a forum just to discourage new members.  Still, I downloaded MyInfo yesterday and did a small project with it.  I don't see that it offers a lot of new functionality, though, if Evermike or Devf are reading this, you should both take a look at the clever way they managed to implement tags and notes.  Also, Devf, you should look at how clean the interface is capable of being.  I would love it if Surfulator had the ability to shift between its normal interface and a completely clean interface at will.  (I know, I know, I will go post the suggestion on the Surfulator forum :)
If you missed the link it was http://www.milenix.com

Another interesting piece of software we should look at is the Literary Machine http://www.sommestad.com/lm__index2.htm
This one is really interesting.  I actually looked at this as a writer's tool some years back, but I found it a little cumbersome at the time.  Of course, at the time we hadn't yet heard of the millenium bug :tellme:. I guess it was more years back than I thought. :(
 Nowadays, my computer is faster and the software is a lot better, even in the freeware version which hasn't been updated for a few years.  This is really a "drop it into the hole and organize it later" type of program.  Pretty much an open form relational database. I have to say that I remember far less about it than I thought I would, but I am studying it.  It has a steeper learning curve than I might like, but it seems really capable.  It might be that this would bridge the gap between Evernote and actual writing, especially if Evernote ever actually releases the next update featuring drag and drop in and out. 
Oh, yeah, I should point out that this is a REALLY mouse intensive program :(.  I will write a mini review after I have had a bit more time to play with it. 
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.  - Benjamin Franklin

superboyac

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,347
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #237 on: June 01, 2006, 04:06 PM »
MyInfo was mentioned a few posts ago.  I tried it out and didn't see that it could do anything Mybase couldn't do.  Maybe it's interface was a little smoother.  But it's just a normal tree-heirarchy like Mybase, so I didn't notice anything special about it.  At least Mybase offers loads of additional features.

I'll try it again and see if I notice anything different.

superboyac

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,347
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #238 on: June 01, 2006, 04:12 PM »
thomthowolf, don't even go there with Literary Machine!   ;D

Seriously, Literary Machine is a program that 90% of the users would have a hard time beginning to do even basic things.  LM is a very abstract thing, I don't think it would fit in at all as far as a general notetaking program.  It's even more difficult to grasp than Zoot.  LM is strictly a poweruser tool.

I tried LM last year, whew!  It was crazy.  I'm sure there are some features in there that may be applicable to notetaking, but, to me, this falls in the "do not try this at home" category.

superboyac

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,347
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #239 on: June 01, 2006, 05:58 PM »
(I'm moving this topic back into the brainstorming thread, since I think it applies)

OK, I just went back and looked at Taonotes again.  It's very interesting for sure.  First of all, I agree with nevf, that the interface is extremely cluttered...at this point, I couldn't bring myself to commit to the program because it feels too awkward for me.  But let me point out some good things about it:

--I like how there's several ways to organize data.  There are lots of different schemes in the tabs on the left.  Like tags to keywords, to a seemingly normal tree structure.  Now, I have no idea how the individual items are kept track of, but having the multiple options is nice.  Surfulater does this also, in a different way.

--The filter-as-you-type feature is awesome!  I think it's a very good implementation of it, it's fast and seems to work well.  Evernote is still the king of this feature so far.  But Taonote's is better than the one that just got introduced to Mybase (v5).  The one in Mybase is a little clunky; it doesn't work as well as you'd like it to.  So Taonotes is like 2nd best here so far.  Good!

Anyway, those are my thoughts so far.  I'm definitely intrigued by the program and what it can offer.  But, please, for the sake of sanity, do something about the interface or the basic layout!  I just can't figure out what everything does.  There are tabs on the left, tabs on the right, weird buttons and symbols everywhere, it's like heiroglyphics!

thomthowolf

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 106
  • Bad software makes me tired
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #240 on: June 01, 2006, 07:41 PM »
Seriously, Literary Machine is a program that 90% of the users would have a hard time beginning to do even basic things.  LM is a very abstract thing, I don't think it would fit in at all as far as a general notetaking program.  It's even more difficult to grasp than Zoot.  LM is strictly a poweruser tool.
I don't know about that.  I have been playing with it a little today.  In fact, I wrote the post you are responding to using it.  At it's heart, I think it is just notecards.  The trouble may be that the author thinks of it as a thinking tool, and is fascinated with the 3 dimensional discovery of new ideas.  If you just want to take notes and then arrange them into a coherent draft document, I think you can learn to do that fairly quickly. 
I will admit that the documentation is fairly ... esoteric.  I just can't decide if the software is really that hard to work with or if its just that the documentation is. 
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.  - Benjamin Franklin

thomthowolf

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 106
  • Bad software makes me tired
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #241 on: June 01, 2006, 09:28 PM »
(I'm moving this topic back into the brainstorming thread, since I think it applies)

OK, I just went back and looked at Taonotes again.  It's very interesting for sure. 

--I like how there's several ways to organize data. 

--The filter-as-you-type feature is awesome! 

I tried this a couple of months ago, but got frightened  away by the interface.  I will also try to give this an honest chance
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.  - Benjamin Franklin

superboyac

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,347
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #242 on: June 02, 2006, 02:29 AM »
thombthowolf, let me rephrase what I said.  I know that LM can be used to collect information in the form of text, and can do it in a unique way that may prove to be useful.  But from the general perspective of notetaking applications, there's no way it would catch on beyond a poweruser base.  I say that, not strictly because the program is too difficult to use (I'm sure a competant computer user could eventually figure it out), but more so because there's a certain level of familiarity that users (in general!) will want with a notetaking application.  Namely, some kind of outline or tree or something, and some kind of visual organization of the notes.  LM is just too different.  I guarantee you most people will give up on the software in the first 10 minutes, if their intention is to find a notetaking application.  I mean, just imagine, a user downloads several programs to try, say, Surfulater, Evernote, Mybase, Keynote, Onenote, Myinfo.  And then he comes across LM...how long do you think he will stick to it?

rjbull

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 3,205
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #243 on: June 02, 2006, 05:40 AM »
superboyac,

Personally, as far as working with web content, EverNote does it the best of all the programs I've tried, by far.

I belatedly remembered NetSnippets.  Have you compared with Evernote for Web capture, which is its focus?  It found favour with the formidable CarolHaynes

I saw your comment about this thread being primarily about notekeeping; should it be forked for Web capture?  I'd also be interested in what software you use to summarise all the posts  :)

edit:
Hmph.  No need to fork, just add to the IDEA - Web page archiving thread





« Last Edit: June 02, 2006, 05:43 AM by rjbull »

superboyac

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,347
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #244 on: June 02, 2006, 10:13 AM »
rjbull, when I'm talking about web-capturing in this thread, I mean web-capturing capabilities of notetaking programs, not dedicated web-capturing programs.  In this context, I think Evernote does it the best.

I'm quite certain that dedicated web-capturing programs in general are going to be better than something you'll find in these notetaking apps.

That's what makes this topic and genre of software so difficult.  It's so easy for the overall featureset to include anything and everything, and pretty soon, you end up with a program like InfoSelect.  But, I do feel web-capturing is somewhat essential to a notetaker, so it has to be incorporated to some degree.  But it doesn't necessarily have to be as powerful as Net-Snippets or something like that.


As far as what I used to summarize this thread, all I did was use the print button on this page and print the entire thread to a pdf (78 pages!).  Then I'm just going to print it out and read through it and come up with a summary.  Nothing special.  I'm not sticking this thread into a notetaking app or something like that, if that was what you meant.

thomthowolf

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 106
  • Bad software makes me tired
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #245 on: June 02, 2006, 06:42 PM »
LM is just too different.  I guarantee you most people will give up on the software in the first 10 minutes, if their intention is to find a notetaking application.  I mean, just imagine, a user downloads several programs to try, say, Surfulater, Evernote, Mybase, Keynote, Onenote, Myinfo.  And then he comes across LM...how long do you think he will stick to it?
:up:Yeah, you have a point.  I think I will still do a mini review, mainly because I think I see some personal usability for this program, and I might as well share what I learn.
Speaking of giving up on software in the first 10 minutes ...  I tried Taonotes again.  I am truly sorry to say this, but I have never seen a piece of software more desperately in need of a good technical writer, and I see a LOT of software.  I am, by trade, a technical trainer, which makes me kind of the bastard son of a technical writer and a shop teacher.  I develop training materials for software and hardware, generally starting from the blueprint and alpha versions.  The trouble with Taonotes is not just that there is not sufficient documentation, but that what there is is counter productive.   :down:
Vadim, if you read this, then please don't be offended, but if you want to get people to use your software in place of the variety of competing products, you need to do at least these 2 things:
1. Scrap your sample data completely.  It only serves to make the interface look too busy.
2.  Decide what the software wants to be when it grows up.  What I mean is, your users cannot effectively decide on whether to use your software if they don't know what it is for.  I know the application will do everything but make your morning coffee, but if I am looking for a note taking app, I want to be able to get my notes into it immediately.  It needs to be obvious to use.  You need to decide what one thing the software does better than anything else, and use that feature, and ONLY that feature, to ease the user into using it.  Take another look at the (admittedly annoying) flash introduction to Evernote, for example.  If Taonotes could introduce itself that way on first start as, for example, a note taker, then your potential users will be delighted to discover  later on that it also works as a PIM, and still later that it will walk your dog or whatever.
I am certain that I could find some use for this software, `but is is just too hard to decide where to start. 
Sorry for the rant, but documentation is a subject that matters, and does not get enough attention.   
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.  - Benjamin Franklin

actitrend

  • Participant
  • Joined in 2006
  • *
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #246 on: June 02, 2006, 09:40 PM »
>I tried Taonotes again.  I am truly sorry to say this, but I have never seen a piece of software more desperately in need of a good technical writer, and I see a LOT of software.

Thomthowolf, you’re right…. As a developer I understand that too…. But on one hand I can not find time enough to set up this side of product development (actually I wrote TaoNotes project in my spare time, I have another full time job)… and constant time limitations is me big enemy… basically, I have time for programming/general management only…. I constantly delay the writing of a good manual, for instance… I know it’s too bad…. But I can not do that too much in this direction so far…. The shareware project is unprofitable….
On other hand, may be I have no “system view” how to present my software right…. (you’re talking about in this thread)…
 
>Vadim, if you read this, then please don't be offended,

I’ve read this. Absolutely not! :O) Contrary, you words give me the direction to work :O)

>but if you want to get people to use your software in place of the variety of competing products,

I really want to bit the variety of competing products :O) … no doubts…. :O)

>you need to do at least these 2 things:
>1. Scrap your sample data completely.  It only serves to make the interface look too busy.

Good advice. I will use it for sure.

>2.  Decide what the software wants to be when it grows up.  What I mean is, your users cannot effectively decide on whether to >use your software if they don't know what it is for.


>You need to decide what one thing the software does better than anything else, and use that feature, and ONLY that feature, to >ease the user into using it.

It’s hard to determine what this feature will be… :O)

> Take another look at the (admittedly annoying) flash introduction to Evernote, for example.

Never seen it…

>  If Taonotes could introduce itself >that way on first start as, for example, a note taker, then your potential users will be delighted to discover  later on that it also >works as a PIM, and still later that it will walk your dog or whatever.

Practical approach….. As an author I wish people understand all use of software at once :O) especially not providing good manual :O))….. but for sure the approach you’re proposing in better….. firstly take it as a note-taker, then as a to-do manager, then as a bookmark manager, then as a search manager, then as a technical writer’s tool, etc…. I like this….

>I am certain that I could find some use for this software, `but is is just too hard to decide where to start.

The proper manual should help here, I think…. Site content should help (it does not)…
 
>Sorry for the rant, but documentation is a subject that matters, and does not get enough attention. 

I know, I know…… I will try to do something in this field in the nearest future (my favorite phrase for the last year :O)….

          But, Thomthowolf,  let’s consider TaoNotes from another side…… You wrote you’re technical writer…. I develop TaoNotes with the user like you in mind…. The application itself is suitable for technical writing….. I use it for relatively short writings myself…. It gives you well results enough it seems…..

     As you’ve downloaded the application give it a second (third !!! :O) chance…. I will try to explain here how to use it in a few words….. try to write small instruction you’re used to do in TaoNotes for example….

    Create new notebook File->New….   It will be empty….  Then choose Insert->Composite Item->Extended Project command…. It will insert a small project outline into notebook…. Then choose the first (top) outline item (called ‘Project’)…. Then choose Publish->Publish items With Children….. All your notes in this outline branch will be rendered to HTML page and shown in the external browser….. (or you can import it to MS Word)….
    You can see the notes on different levels have different styles applied…. So, you have an idea….. you can set up the formatting….. just building outline….  To say more: applying labels to items you can get different formatting and images inserted for typical cases (tip, note, attention, information, pro, con, etc….)….
   It’s much faster to rearrange chapters, paragraphs in the outline than in MS Word, for instance…. But my point of view could be subjective here :O)

    Vadim
 

actitrend

  • Participant
  • Joined in 2006
  • *
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #247 on: June 02, 2006, 10:30 PM »
About discovering to-do manager in note-taker…..

I think it’s natural that you can place note and you can place to-do here…. You can set it by type of item (note or to-do)….  Moreover I believe you can convert note into to-do if you will set priority or status (in progress, etc) for this note…..

When you wrote some brief notes for yourself (planning your day for example)….. you can view all your items you’re entering as notes…. Just notes…. But then you realize that some of them are tasks you HAVE to do….. and you wish to mark them as a TASKS/TODOS! Why not! Some of notes remain just notes….. it could be reference info, you attitude to something, you ideas (idea is not equal to todo)…. Your comments to notes or to-dos….

That’s why TaoNotes provides mechanisms to convert notes into tasks by setting Status and Priority….

If we will take “pure” to-do manager it consider all things as tasks….. if we will take note-taker it has lack of support for to-do management….. but I believe people need both things at the same time…..

After splitting todos,  notes and reference info you can easily operate on it… the info you working with become more structural….. you can track your tasks on one hand, see and easily reach your notes and reuse reference info (like URL bookmarks, the same google seaches)  on the regular basis….

   So, TaoNotes offer the scheme NOTES->TASKS + NOTES->REFERENCES
   or NOTES/TASKS/REFERENCES……

   Let’s take Surfulator or Evernote or OneNote…. Do they offer this? No…. no way for task management….

   Why? I have statistics…. I think it’s suitable for most people…… 90% of their notes is SHORT (tasks, reference info). 10% is long enough (web-capturing, etc)….. 90:10….. this may vary…… But does the mentioned programs designed to work with small notes? Like “todo thing #1”, “www.microsift.com” etc….  I think that working with small information chunk is not effective there…..

   Your thoughts?

   Vadim

actitrend

  • Participant
  • Joined in 2006
  • *
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #248 on: June 02, 2006, 10:40 PM »
About web-capturing…


I think that in MOST cases the HTML formatting and images should be removed…. They give no additional information… just waste of space on your hard disk….. The preferable method for web-clipping is taking plain text…. It works like filtering…. Gives standard text presentation (no Zoo of different styles)…. Gives better information comprehension….. it’s stated by tests….
 
That’s why TaoNotes uses plain text for Web-Clipping…. Though it’s able to store HTML also…… (w/o embedded images)…..

Clipping in one-fashioned way lets easily reuse info-clips in your own “notes-stream”….. as I mentioned above TaoNotes generates HTML output on the base of provided outline structure….

Vadim

Rover

  • Master of Smilies
  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 633
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software
« Reply #249 on: June 03, 2006, 12:28 AM »
Vadim - I absolutely disagree about the web capture stuff.  I am very visual and mentally "key" off of the look and information.  If I write a note on a piece of paper, I remember the size and color of the paper. I usually remember the orientation and position of the text. 

In the same way, when I capture a web page, I want to capture the way it looks, not just the text.  Heck sometimes the graphics are part of the information.

Just my $0.02.
Insert Brilliant Sig line here